


Morning, Noon, Night

by waxjism



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-10-01
Updated: 2000-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxjism/pseuds/waxjism





	Morning, Noon, Night

**morning**  
7.45 am

The only thing I see of Ray is one stray tuft of hair peering out under the duvet. In my absence, he's wrapped himself in a tight chrysalis of down and cotton. It's not cold in the bedroom, but he seems to be huddling under the covers for warmth; perhaps the loss of my body heat has left him chilly. He's lying on my side of the bed, as if hoarding the remaining warmth.

Dief snuffles softly by my side.

"I'm coming," I say, waving absently at him. He nudges my leg. "Yes. I'm just ... looking."

He sighs with wolfy disdain and pads into the kitchen. I better go after him before he attempts to start breakfast on his own. The first rays of morning sun wander across the floor towards the bed. Ray, the not-quite-so-sunny human, sleeps on.

  
8.45

I don't like opening my eyes. The light's too sharp in the morning. Be better to wake up while it's still dark, but that would be way too much like Fraser. I'm not stuck on him that bad. I'm still me, still prefer to wake up after the sun. Yeah, that's me - sleep in the morning, avoid licking sidewalks. Fraser licks disgusting things. I just lick Fraser.

Light's still too sharp, though, and it'd be nicer to have Fraser there to cuddle up to instead of this poor, lumpy pillow I'm clutching right now. I have my head on his pillow, smelling the fading traces of his very special Frasersmell, but that's not much of a substitute for someone so big and warm and there. When he's there. Which he's not right now. If I want Frasercuddle in the morning, I better do it before seven am. And that is _not_ an option on my day off.

Almost nine now, though, and that's closing up on human. I can smell coffee, and I know Fraser's made it for me. I know this because a) he doesn't drink coffee, not in the morning at least, and b) he's no doubt been awake since five thirty or something, and if he was gonna have coffee, he would have had it already. But this smells fresh and tempting. I'm gonna start thinking about unfolding myself from my warm - but not warm enough - nest.

  
9.00

He finally comes into the kitchen. I've poured his coffee already. Adding the chocolate is something of a ritual for him, so I've left the bag out next to the cup. He shuffles to the chair opposite to me and sits down, his eyes only half-open. He screws them shut completely against the bright sun, and I push my chair a metre to the left until my body offers some shade. He squints at me and the corners of his mouth curl infinitesimally.

"Thanks."

"No problem at all. Good morning, Ray."

"Mmmmph." He gulps down a mouthful of coffee, makes a face, and starts dropping colourful chocolates into his cup one by one.

"What do you want to do today?"

"It's my day off."

"Indeed it is."

"It's your day off."

"Indeed it is."

"You have to ask?" and he grins at me; the sun has competition.

**noon**

It's still cold outside, but the sun is really hot in here. Maybe the window's working like a magnifying glass or something, turning the half-assed February light into some serious death ray. I'm naked on a blanket on the floor, and I worry about my skin for a while. I'm usually pretty fish-belly white by early November, no matter how brown I get in the summer, and the light's pouring over me, molten gold hot and so bright I'm shining. Stupid to get sunburn in February, but I'm too comfortable to move. I'm doing the cat thing - just lying in a patch of sunlight, all stretched out and drowsing. I like these long, lazy days when someone else is doing the work.

I close my eyes and pretend I'm outside, that it's summer. The sunlight is coming straight from the sun, no glass in between, and the wind's making the trees sway just a little, and the sound is almost like waves, only less ... wavy. If I opened my eyes now, I'd see the leaves and maybe a couple of birds outlined against the bright, blinding light. I'd smell warm earth and freshly mown grass, and maybe charcoal smoke and burned steaks from the neighbour's barbecue.

Bare feet on hardwood, and I open my eyes. No birds, but there's Fraser, or at least his jeans. From down here, his face is just a pale blotch on top of a long, long column of legs and torso.

"What were you thinking about?" he asks. "You were smiling."

"Summer."

He lies down next to me, rough jeans and flannel, smelling cool and fresh like the winter somewhere cleaner than this place. His face is ruddy and a little chapped from the cold wind outside. I stop thinking about summer. His hands are ice-cold on my sunbaked skin.

"If you don't want me to touch you, you shouldn't tempt me," he says primly when I squirm.

"Okay, okay - I'm a man, I can take it," and I steel myself and let him warm his hands on my belly. He lets his mouth follow his hands, and it's cold, but his tongue is hot, and the sun on my eyelids turns everything a wild red.

The next time I squirm, it's for a whole different reason.

I make it long and sweet, Ray languid and pliant under me on the fire engine red blanket. I make him squirm, I make him pant and moan, and while I put my mouth and hands and body to work on all that pale, smooth skin Ray has to offer, the sun hides behind a cloud and the room turns grey and glum around us. Still, Ray stays sun warm and summer bright.

He twists and arches his back, bunches the blanket in his fists, and I hold him down, my palms steady on the sharp wings of his hip bones. This is so very familiar: the tangy smell of him, the way the rough curls tickle my nose, the sharp, bitter-sweet taste that fills my mouth. The way he fits me like a key in a lock. The cold I brought in from the world outside has vanished by the time he shudders and cries my name.

Diefenbaker whines in sympathy and stretches out under the kitchen table.

**night**

Tonight, the sky above the rooftops blazes like God's own fireworks. I'm not usually much of a sunset-watcher, but this one's a real Kodak Moment - there are so many colours I wouldn't even know what to call them all. Red, orange, pink - no doubt there are names for every shade. No doubt Fraser knows them all.

"Fraser?"

"Hmm...?"

I snicker a little, 'cause he was obviously tripping somewhere on that sunset, and he's trying to look like he wasn't, all proper and Mountie-like. "Name the colours."

"Wh--? Oh. Of course." He clears his throat. He still looks a little spaced out, but he's not orbiting the planet anymore.

Diefenbaker pads up and puts his heavy head in my lap with an exaggerated sigh. He's rolling his eyes at Fraser.

"I was _not_," Fraser tells Dief indignantly. I just shake my head. "Well, I wasn't," he says to the room in general.

I tune them out and turn back to the colour outside the window. The sun's gone now, and the western sky looks like a huge abstract painting - I can imagine the artist standing tiptoe on the Sears Tower and throwing paint on the sky-canvas by the bucketful. I still don't know what to call the colours.

"Vermilion," Fraser says suddenly. I feel a quick cold shiver sneak up my spine. Then his hand is on my back and the coldness is gone. "Ultramarine. Crimson. Cobalt. Rose madder. Viridian. Mauve..."

I lean towards him, and he leans towards me - "I love it when you talk dirty, Fraser..." - and just like that it's 'sunset, what sunset?', 'cause I really do love it when he talks dirty, and this is dirty enough for me on a quiet night like this.

Our words disappear in the space between the first touch of still-moving lips and the next second when Ray deepens the kiss and pushes me down on the sofa. Dief yips in protest and backs off, glaring accusingly at us. He's making a fuss and I ignore him. It's easy ignore the world, easier yet Dief, when Ray's hands have travelled their light and teasing way from my chest down to my groin. His body covers me like a warm, human blanket.

He breaks the kiss and says, "Bed, bed, let's go to bed," and promptly seals my mouth shut with his again.

It's a good ten minutes before he remembers he was the one who wanted to change venue. By then we're both bare-chested. In deference to me, he's hung my shirt over the lamp by the sofa instead of throwing it on the floor like he did with his own.

"Bed," he says, and this time he gets up and tugs me along. In the doorway to the bedroom, his bare shoulders and neck suddenly shine bright with reflected light, and I realise that the moon has risen. "What?" he says when I stop in my tracks.

I trace a finger down the moonlit skin of his arm. "Silver," I say.

"I know that colour," he snorts, but there's a smile in his voice and he pushes me through the doorway, gently but insistently. We tumble onto the bed - our bed, our bed - and outside, the moon keeps trailing its path over the city.

**coda**  
8.30 am

They leave the quiet apartment and step out into the bright, loud, bustling world. The GTO is cold, and before he lets Fraser out by the Consulate, Ray pokes his hands under the shell of scratchy red serge for a moment. Their eyes meet. They look around, and give themselves a fraction of a second's timeout: just the lightest of touches, sweet kiss, last squeeze of chilly fingers.

Encouraged by the brief rebellion, the new day begins for real.


End file.
